I have heard it said that organizations are filled with two types of work: people work and paper work. Many leaders I meet with WANT to do people work but are STUCK doing paper work.

Continue Reading

One of my favorite bloggers is Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek. His book has been on the New York Times Bestsellers list for almost two years. His blog is one of the most-read on the Internet. Tim has become famous for challenging the status quo.

Recently, he posted a video of his presentation at WordCamp San Francisco, a conference for WordPress bloggers. Though I don’t endorse everything he recommends—and am still mulling some of it over—I found his blog tips compelling and stimulating.

Continue Reading

The most critical step in the hiring process is reference checking. This is important not only in hiring employees but especially in hiring consultants. Not everyone has the expertise they claim.

For example, I am increasingly being pitched by so-called “social media” experts. A very few are bona fide experts. Some are traditional media people, who are repacking the same old advice using the new buzz words. More than a few are unemployed marketing people who discovered Twitter last month.

Continue Reading

If you have been following my blog for more than a week, you know that I am a big proponent of social media. We have used it at Thomas Nelson to achieve some dramatic results, particularly for a few of our authors who don’t otherwise have a media platform. As a result, I am convinced that social media marketing works. Except when it doesn’t.

Yesterday, I was reading a blog post by Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week. I am a fan of his, so when I discovered that he had worked with StumbleUpon to develop a new blog traffic builder called Su.pr (pronounced “Super”), I got very excited. Continue Reading

Most of us don’t spend enough time thinking. We are so busy doing that we have, I fear, almost forgotten how to think. Yet it is our thinking, more than any other single activity, that influences our outcomes.

Continue Reading